


Requiem

by Morgana



Series: Next Best Thing [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:38:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana/pseuds/Morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the only one who can help is someone who's going through the same thing you are</p>
            </blockquote>





	Requiem

In the aftermath of Sunnydale, they never speak of the dead. Oh, every so often one of the SITs will be mentioned in passing, but there are names that are never spoken aloud: the Scooby dead. Every so often Xander thinks how unfair it is that only after their death are they accepted and claimed as Scoobies. But mostly he does his best not to think about them, and usually, he succeeds. It’s only at night that the ghosts come creeping in, followed quickly by the stealthy tread of bare feet on his bedroom floor.

Buffy sheds her nightgown and slips into his bed, drawing her legs up, wrapping her arms around them and resting her cheek on her knees. She looks so innocent like this, and he can’t help but wonder if her lost lover ever got to see this side of her, or if it’s one more regret on the very long list they both have. He takes another drag on his nightly cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs for a long minute before exhaling in a long stream. There’s a comfort in the steady rhythm of smoking, the draw and release that soothes a piece of his soul that he hadn’t even realized was restless. She’s quiet, watching him in the same small ritual that she remembers seeing hundreds of times, wondering how it is she never appreciated it before.

Finally, she breaks the silence, her voice a thin whisper, “I miss his smile and the way he used to yell at the TV when the programs weren’t going the way he thought they should.”

Two things, tonight. She must be hurting more than usual, for they generally allow themselves only one. One precious reminder of what they’ve lost, one tiny aspect of the stars that no longer shine for them. Sometimes he wonders what will happen if a night ever comes that they have run out of things to miss, but that lies so far in the future as to be unthinkable now.

He chuckles softly. “I miss her money dance and the way she used to brighten up when the bell over the door at the Magic Box rang.”

She smiles at the memories his words bring up and falls silent once more. He takes another drag on the cigarette, then stubs it out into the bedside ashtray. As soon as the red embers fade, she moves towards him and he meets her halfway. Mouths crash together, tongues delving eagerly in search of familiar flavors: Crest toothpaste and a heady mixture of smoke and bourbon. He takes her down to the bed, and for forty-five minutes, there is only her and him, their ghosts, and the low sounds of pleasure that bind them all together.

Afterwards, they lie in a tangled mass of limbs, sweat glistening on skin, breath coming in ragged gasps. She cards her fingers through his hair, cradling his head upon her breast with a tenderness that is foreign to her daytime self. He places a light kiss upon her skin, then rolls off to the side, gathering her against him. They don’t delude themselves about what brings them together in the dark of night - they never have.

No headstones were put up for their fallen lovers, no words spoken over a grave, for such things lay people to rest, and their ghosts can’t rest, not yet. The regrets of ‘too little, too late’ haunt them both in a way that no formal rites will ever ease. So while the rest of the house sleeps, they hold their wake, mourning in the only way they will allow themselves. And if, at the moment of climax, they cry out for the ones that will never again answer their call, they are the only ones that will ever know. They have become priest and parishioner, celebrating their own requiem mass with each soft moan and sigh they utter, futilely grasping at whatever they can find as some sort of panacea for the pain that never ceases to gnaw at them.


End file.
